PLENTIFUL ENERGY

ealization of nuclear energy‘s promise of unlimited energy; partly it was national
striving for ―energy independence‖; and partly it was simply that this was the new,
the exciting technology. Nations did not want to be left out. It could even be said
that it was fashionable to be a part of it. The U.S. itself had made a huge nuclear
development effort during WWII, and afterward, it began a very broad program of
civilian reactor development. In every nuclear field, in fact, the U.S. led the way. It
is hard, really, to credit today just how dominant a role the U.S. played in the early
decades of nuclear development. With very few exceptions, other nations simply
followed the U.S.‘s lead, from the beginning of their programs or soon after; so
advanced was U.S. technology, so wide its range and so rapid its development.
Perhaps it seems quixotic to say this today, accustomed as we are to the
ceaseless attacks on nuclear power that started in the late sixties and early seventies
and have continued to this day, but the early development of nuclear power was
actually driven by non-proliferation considerations. When first introduced in the
1950s and 1960s nuclear energy was certainly not a must. In no nation was it
necessary to meet its energy needs of that time. Populations were smaller, per capita
energy use was smaller, fossil fuels were plentiful and inexpensive, and the local
pollution impact of coal was not high on the public agenda. Nuclear power
development began as an exploration of the possible. It was viewed principally as a
possible prudent hedge against an energy shortage far off in the future. But very
soon nuclear power got a huge boost from U.S. national policies that evolved to
deal with a threat entirely different from possible limitations in energy supply.
The stimulus for early introduction of civilian nuclear power came from a nowfamiliar
imperative: the need to find some way of dealing with the looming threat of
proliferation of nuclear weapons. It was a principal concern of President
Eisenhower on taking office, one that led him to a determined attempt to reduce the
danger to the world of what seemed to have become inevitable—that there would
be growing numbers of nuclear weapons, in the nations with nuclear development
programs. The effect was to accelerate the introduction of practical civilian nuclear
power.
An international bargain was to be offered by the U.S. Civilian nuclear power,
proven nuclear power, would be the bargaining chip. The growing number of
nations capable of developing such weapons was thought to be at least a dozen by
the mid-fifties. With his preferred course blocked when his initial two-party
proposals to the Soviet Union for weapons limitations were rebuffed, and his
options then limited, Eisenhower took a principal role in drafting a landmark
speech. In it, he outlined his Atoms for Peace proposals to the United Nations. [5] It
offered this trade: U.S. nuclear knowledge, technology, and even U.S. nuclear fuel
for civilian purposes, in exchange for an undertaking by recipient nations
themselves to halt indigenous weapons development. The U.S. was in a
commanding position internationally in all things nuclear, but this new policy
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